How to Enjoy Financial Success
in a Life of Professional Selling

Whatever the majority of people is doing, under any given circumstances, if you do the exact opposite, you will probably never make another mistake as long as you live.

—Earl Nightingale

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Yes, I know we talked about ways you can quickly and significantly increase your income in selling in the previous chapter as well as throughout all the chapters. But a high income does not always mean financial success. I have seen peers of mine, doctors; executives and entrepreneurs; and super successful sales professionals earn incomes in excess of $100,000 a year, year after year, still with little to show for it and still running ever-faster after the next desperately needed dollar. How can this be?

I do not pretend to be a financial genius, but you cannot be as serious a student of human behavior as I am without also studiously observing how people deal with the money that flows into and through their fingers in their lifetimes. In doing so, I have noted the few habits that rob even the highest money earners of financial security and independence, and I have formulated my beliefs about why these habits are so prevalent.

First, let me share a secret that I was very fortunate to learn at a relatively young age. Understanding this secret empowered me to make certain that my opportunities to earn large incomes did not go to waste; that I was able to use it to create financial independence for my wife and I, so that we enjoyed many years late in life absolutely free of any money worries or sacrifices. I say “secret” because so few people seem to understand this truth that it might as well be the closely and selfishly guarded secret of a small, elite, wealthy class. It’s not, but it might as well be. It is this: that a high income is almost irrelevant if it is not used to create equity. The difference between income and equity is all important.

Income is here today, gone tomorrow. Most sales professionals who leap up to high earnings spend their incomes quickly and foolishly. Often they buy things that lose rather than gain value over time, like fancy cars, boats, overbuilt and overpriced homes, gaudy jewelry. Sometimes they blow sizeable sums in bars and nightclubs, generously paying for round after round, showing off. All too often, the commission check from the big sale disappears thanks to “wine, women and song,” with little left to prove it was ever collected, except perhaps a grand hangover and an income tax liability.

I’m not opposed to living well. I’ve made a point of living well myself. In fact, if you do not reward yourself as well as your family for your hard work and extra efforts, you’ll soon lose your “spark.” As the saying goes, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

But you do not want to have hundreds of thousands of dollars slip through your fingers only to wake up after five, ten, or more years with a pile of lifestyle debt to service, an urgent need for that next commission check, still having to perform to pay bills, still working because you must rather than by choice. This is why equity or net worth is so much more important than income. You can increase your income year after year and still be broke. But you cannot increase net worth year after year and be broke. The most important question to ask is not “am I making more money this year than last?,” but “is my net worth greater this year than last?”

By the way, the use of income to create financial stability is so important because failing to do so ultimately sets a vicious cycle of self-image destruction in motion. The person who works hard and earns an exceptional income yet never seems to get ahead and is always living paycheck to paycheck eventually begins to question everything about his/her life, selling career and judgement. Financial pressures can shrink one’s self-image to the size of a small potato. On the other hand, prosperity and a feeling of pros-perousness and independence feeds on itself and strengthens the self-image. For maximum mental health, you must give your self-image the edge of measurable, meaningful progress toward financial security as opposed to just filling one pocket only to empty it just as quickly, then racing to fill it again.

Here are the habits I have taken note of, that determine whether high income leads to financial independence or financial frustration.

Spending vs. Investing

There is a very simple discipline that will serve you well: decide on a set percentage of all the income that comes to you that is taken off the top and put into secure investments certain to gain in value over time. It might be 1%, it might be 10%; pick a percentage you can live with and stick to it.

If you spend your income, you cannot gain equity from year to year. The best way to be certain you do not spend all your income is to take some off the top and invest that before you spend even a cent.

A warning: do not wait to begin cultivating this habit until you have “extra money” or until this, that, or the other thing occurs. Begin immediately, even if you have unpaid bills and believe you cannot afford to begin. Do it anyway. Do it now. Nothing will better convince the self-image that you are a prosperous person certain to attract plenty of opportunity, good fortune and money than seeing you make frequent deposits into your investment account.

Spending to Impress Others
vs. Spending to Satisfy Yourself

Many people get themselves into serious financial trouble by spending their incomes trying to impress colleagues, neighbors, clients or girlfriends or boyfriends. In many salesforces, a one-upmanship culture takes hold, so as soon as one salesperson buys a new car, the others feel an urgent compulsion to buy new cars too. At annual meetings and conferences, each salesman’s wife must be decked out in more expensive clothes and jewelry than the next, the saleswomen’s husbands in costly custom suits and Rolex watches. If you have paid attention to everything else I’ve written in this book and in Psycho-Cybernetics, you can diagnose the seeds of this behavior easily. This is a frail, unconfident self-image trying to buy respect and approval. But this is futile, because gaining the respect of others requires self-respect.

Again, I have nothing bad to say about spending some of your money for personal pleasure. If a night on the town including limousine and driver, fanciest supper club, and theater is enjoyable, by all means, enjoy! You do not need my permission or anyone else’s permission or my approval or anyone else’s approval to spend the money you earn as you choose. The important words are “as you choose.”

Choice is a very interesting thing. We humans are gifted with free will. Yet we so often abdicate it to others, by seeking their approval, their admiration, even their envy when self-approval and self-respect are the only paths to genuine happiness and peace of mind.

A man I know who, today, owns millions of dollars of real estate in several major cities, says he began while still a college student, working his way through school without benefit of scholarship, grant, or parental support. He bought his first piece of real estate, raw land that ultimately proved worthless, on an installment contract requiring payment of just $9 a month. To pay that $9, he had to suffer the taunts and derision of classmates who urged him to go out on the town, go to a local bar and have a few beers, and so forth; he had to decline, in order to save the money to make his monthly payment. To pay that $9, he had to sacrifice peer approval. He wore old, unfashionable clothes. He avoided the Thursday night poker games at the dorm. He made choices that were unpopular, viewed as weird, as too “straight” by those around him he desperately wished to have as friends. He now says that first piece of land was the worst real-estate investment of his entire life, but the very best investment in personal character-building he’s ever made.

Deficit Spending vs. Living Within Your Means

Our national government has gotten all of us, our children and our grandchildren into a terrible mess thanks to its cheerful willingness to indulge in a continuing orgy of deficit spending. By spending money it does not have and only hopes to receive in the future, the federal government has accumulated such a sizeable debt it can never be paid off. Just servicing the interest on this debt is choking our economy, endangering the health and safety of our population, allowing our infrastructure of highways and transportation systems to deteriorate, and obligating future generations to financial slavery. You undoubtedly share my abhorrence for and anger at this irresponsible behavior on the part of our elected officials. Yet, do you tolerate or excuse the same irresponsible behavior in yourself?

As a side note, it is quite common to sharply criticize others for traits of our own we are guilty about or ashamed of. It is much tougher to look myself in the mirror and say, “Maxie, you wouldn’t want to have to defend that, would you?” than to turn your back to the mirror and waggle a finger at someone else.

Deficit spending has become enormously popular in America. The idea of “saving up” to buy a new washer, dryer or refrigerator, new coat or outfit, or for a vacation is looked on as hopelessly old-fashioned. Modern society offers instant gratification with credit. The popularization of credit cards turned almost all Americans into debtors. The temptation to live beyond one’s income is considerable. And many high-income sales professionals succumb, living significantly beyond their income, buying things with credit to be paid for later with anticipated, future earnings. This habit makes one a slave rather than a master, and severely weakens and undermines the health and vitality of the self-image.

The interest paid on consumer debt is an insidious cancer that eats away the net worth of even high-income earners. When interest effectively doubles, triples or quadruples the total price paid for all sorts of goods and services, no ordinary mortal can out-earn the damage.

The sales world is full of people earning $100,000 to $150,000 a year who are literally enslaved to the issuers of credit.

Eventually, this takes its toll. The person is surrounded by expensive luxury, material goods, and a lifestyle that impresses those not privy to his/her true financial condition. But he/she is increasingly frustrated and unhappy, realizing how little independence or security there is, living commission check to commission check even after years of earning an excellent income. Instead of viewing the future with optimism the person fears it. He/she worries that a slump, an illness, some sudden adverse turn of events will topple his/her “house of cards.” The person worries that the people he/she has tried to impress will somehow perceive that “the emperor has no clothes.” Sometimes this person even finds him- or herself desperate for the next sale; yet desperate salespeople cannot sell. The pressure of debt may even derail the career entirely. I’ll tell you about such a person in a few minutes.

The greatest favor a high-income earner can do for him- or herself is to get out of debt and then to stay out of debt. In our modern society, you just about have to carry and use credit cards, especially to travel and entertain. But these should be paid off every month, not in so-called minimum monthly payments. Major purchases should be saved for, not bought now and paid for later. This admittedly unusual approach can totally free you from all money pressure. As a medical doctor, I will even say that such financial freedom and its associated freedom from frustration, worry, and stress is quite likely to extend your life span by years, reduce your risk of many debilitating diseases including cancer, and add quality to your life.

Greg Stanley, the President of a Phoenix, Arizona-based company, Whitehall Management, has coached and counseled literally thousands of doctors of chiropractic, dentistry and other disciplines to the successful achievement of financial independence and security. Greg Stanley’s seminars and “boot camps” are legendary in these professions. And a cornerstone of Greg Stanley’s teachings for these high-income professionals is the eradication of consumer debt from their lives. I suggest to you that what’s good financial medicine for the doctors is good medicine for you, too.

Why Do So Many People Misuse Money?

I want you to meet a man I had a very in-depth dialogue with, about his financial habits and problems—a very successful sales representative for a major national company. We’ll call him Elliott.

ELLIOTT:	Dr. Maltz, I’m very disturbed about my finances.
MM:	What’s the problem?
ELLIOTT:	I make a very good income and have for a number of years, but I don’t have much to show for it. People who make less than I do are always talking about their investments and I don’t have any. We’re renting our home. I always seem to need all my commissions just to pay my bills. I’m worried about what will happen years from now, when I can’t sell anymore or I want to retire.
MM:	Well, Elliott, I’m no finance expert, and you probably ought to get some help from a credit counselor or financial planner.
ELLIOTT:	Maybe, but I think my problems are psychological.
MM:	What makes you say that?
ELLIOTT:	I got to thinking about it last week, after I heard your lecture. My Dad has sort of a low opinion of what I do. He never directly says so, but he often makes disparaging remarks about salespeople he’s dealt with, calls them sharks, and complains about how hard he and the other guys in the factory work for their wages while the salesmen stand around and drink coffee, go to fancy lunches, and make too much money too easily for their own good.
MM:	That’s a mouthful all right. But what do you believe about salespeople in general and about what you do?
ELLIOTT:	I know that what salespeople do is important and useful. You know, nothing happens until somebody sells something and all that. But there are a lot of people like Dad who work a whole lot harder for their wages than I work. It doesn’t seem fair, does it?
MM:	Maybe, maybe not. Let’s go back to your money. What do you do to save money? To invest for the future?
ELLIOTT:	Truthfully nothing. I’ve tried. I’ve opened savings accounts, but wound up closing them after I raided them for one reason or another. I hate the very idea of living on a budget.
MM:	It’s pretty clear you aren’t going to accumulate any money that way. There are any number of little gimmicks we could use to fix that, but if you’re right, and you are washing your hands of money as rapidly as it comes to you because of some psychological monkey business, no gimmick’s going to work.
ELLIOTT:	That’s what I’m afraid of.
MM:	You know, if I operate on a patient and do surgery that restores a man’s face after an accident or maybe enhances the beauty of a young woman, I might make as much in two hours as you make all month. Is that unfair?
ELLIOTT:	It’s no secret that doctors make a lot of money. But you did go to school for years, you spent a lot of money doing that—a doctor like you—a specialist, has a lot of skill that’s relatively rare. I guess you’re entitled.
MM:	Nice of you. But what about a top salesman? He not only went to school but he’s constantly going to seminars and training classes, studying books, learning to use computers. He invests a lot of money in keeping his skills sharp. He has to dress well, so he invests a bit of money in suits and ties. He has to keep an automobile in good working order and looking good. And he certainly has skills that are relatively rare—the top sales professional probably knows as much about human nature and human behavior as most psychologists, psychiatrists or counselors. He/she has to learn how to ask diagnostic questions, present information in an organized and interesting way, and to handle disappointment and frustration.
ELLIOTT:	Put like that, there’s a lot to this selling business.
MM:	So let’s say that a top sales pro makes a lot more money than, say, a fellow who pumps gas in a service station, an auto mechanic, or even a factory worker, is that fair or unfair?
ELLIOTT:	I’m not sure.
MM:	Look, I know it’s difficult to talk about your father or mother objectively, but let’s try for just a minute or two. Doesn’t a factory worker have opportunities? Couldn’t a factory worker go to night school and acquire skills that would lead to a better paying job? Couldn’t a factory worker start a business on the side to increase income? Could a factory worker even learn to sell and become a salesman?
ELLIOTT:	I guess so, but . . .
MM:	Yes, everybody’s closet of excuses is full of “but’s.” But there’s nothing really stopping anybody from getting ahead in America. Deep down inside, the factory worker knows that. Today he/she’s unhappy with the sum total of available choices. So he/she’s resentful and jealous of others who have an easier time of it. The factory worker tries to make him- or herself feel better by making anybody like that within earshot feel bad. And may not do that consciously, but that’s how his/her damaged and weak self-image struggles to make the worker feel better.
ELLIOTT:	That’s disturbing.
MM:	If you are guilty about your money, then your money is making you unhappy. You don’t want to feel that way. Just like the factory worker, you instruct your Servo-Mechanism to make you feel better. The factory worker’s Servo-Mechanism obeys by demeaning other people. Your Servo-Mechanism obeys by taking your money away from you.
ELLIOTT:	At that rate, I’ll be commission check to commission check for the rest of my life.
MM:	Could be. But let’s experiment with a few things, just to see what happens.
ELLIOTT:	No harm done.
MM:	Okay, here’s my prescription for you. First, the gimmick. You’re going to open up a savings account at a bank in a distant city, at least 1,000 miles away, so it will be a difficult task to go there and make a withdrawal. Then every Friday you’re going to send a deposit there equal to 10% of all the money you make during the week.
ELLIOTT:	I’m barely making it. I can’t take a 10% pay cut.
MM:	We’ll see.
ELLIOTT:	All right, although I can’t see the point.
MM:	Hopefully you will. Now, second, I want you to devote a full hour every day to sitting in a comfortable chair, in a quite place, eyes closed, creating little mental movies of what it would be like if you were financially secure. Put together a movie of a mortgage-burning party, when your house is paid for. Another about your meeting with your stock broker and financial advisor. And so on.
ELLIOTT:	Seems a little goofy.
MM:	Uh-huh. Now, finally, I want you to read the sort of thing people of wealth read. Read The Wall Street Journal every day. Read magazines like Money, Personal Finance, even Fortune.
ELLIOTT:	Then what?
MM:	Let’s get together again in three months.

The Wealth Rejection Syndrome,
a Disease of the Self-Image

I have come to the conclusion that a person’s attitudes about money are far more significant than his/her investing aptitudes, and certainly far, far more significant than luck or good fortune, in determining his/her wealth, security and financial success over time.

Many top earners, like Elliott, suffer from what I now call wealth rejection syndrome. It is a disease of the self-image. Its chief causes are guilt, extreme religious indoctrination, hypnosis in upbringing, and peer pressure.

Guilt about how you make your money, how easily you make your money, or how much money you make can instruct your Servo-Mechanism to get rid of it as fast as you get it. You can hear that in Elliott’s story.

Extreme religious indoctrination has made many people devoutly believe that wealth is evil and poverty is good. This is so patently ridiculous it’s a wonder to me that it sticks with anybody. But it does. Let me tell you why this is off base, both spiritually and as a practical matter. I will argue that God created abundance all around us and placed absolutely no limits on how much of that abundance we enjoy and benefit from. We limit ourselves, of course, in all sorts of ways: ignorance, stupidity, laziness, lack of discipline, superstition, and so on. But God placed no such limitations on us nor any limitations on how much of all the goodness of life we are to experience.

As a practical matter, anyone who insists that money or wealth is evil must desire to return to living in caves, killing wild animals with sticks for food, and grunting at each other as our only means of communication, because all progress since then has required the use of money as well as the creation and reinvestment of wealth. The scholarships that enable a student to go to college and to medical school; the hospital in which he or she will operate; the telephone lines through which a child will make a 911 emergency call when her father topples over in front of her with a heart attack; the ambulance that will get him to the hospital in time for his life to be saved; all these things are the result of wealth created and wealth reinvested. Rather than being the root of all evil, money, wealth creation and wealth reinvestment is the natural, vibrant juice of all human progress.

By “hypnosis in upbringing,” I mean that a great many people are so thoroughly, consistently and ardently indoctrinated by parents, other family members, teachers and other authority figures in an antiwealth attitude that they are, in effect, hypnotized to avoid wealth, and reject it. Consider the simple phrase filthy rich. How many times have you heard it? Do you want to be a “filthy” person? Of course not. All too often, people, parents of limited means and limited opportunities unload all their disappointment, frustration, envy and resentment about their lot in life on their children. Instead of telling the children that they can be great, can excel, and that they can, in fact, grow rich if they desire, and instead of educating them in the fundamental truths of our free enterprise system—namely, that wealth is most often a representation of service and discipline—they admonish their children against expecting too much from life, tell them that the rich are evil, and literally hypnotize them against success.

Finally, there is peer pressure. Negative peer pressure can infect a healthy self-image and, over time, cancerize it, or negative peer pressure can easily reinforce an already negative self-image. Association with people who are constantly belittling you and your ambitions, constantly whining about how they are unfairly treated by life and insisting that you are and will be too can only lead you in one unhappy direction. Such people are expressing their own badly damaged self-images. They are telling you the truth as they see it, viewed through unsuccessful life experiences. The saying “misery loves company” tells this story.

Any one or combination of these influences can convince your self-image that you are just not meant to be rich. Convinced that this is so, the self-image instructs your superpowerful Servo-Mechanism to make absolutely certain that, under no conditions or circumstances, are you to keep much of the money you earn, successfully save and invest it, or otherwise develop financial security and independence. And it will do just that.

A Look at the Wealth Rejection Syndrome at Work

Are lottery winners cursed? If you look at the outcomes, you might think so. After winning two million dollars in a California lottery, Brett Peterson, a busboy in a restaurant, went on a wild spending spree, ran up his credit cards to the max, indiscriminately loaned thousands of dollars to friends, and “partied” until he was broke. Just months after getting his first lottery check, Brett Peterson had to get a lowest-rung-on-the-ladder sales clerk job just to make ends meet, keep roof overhead, and beans on the table.

Lynette Nichols, a six-dollar-an-hour bookkeeper, was one of three winners of a giant forty-eight million dollar lottery jackpot in Texas. But she’d barely gotten winnings in hand when she and her husband started fighting—over money! She objected to his wasting money on expensive electronic gadgets for himself. He objected to her lavishing cars and other expensive gifts on her side of the family. The two wound up in a bitter divorce that cost each of them hundreds of thousands of dollars and turned the winning of the lottery into the destruction of a marriage. (Incidentally, if you assume her winnings to be roughly eight or nine million dollars after taxes, probably paid out over time, perhaps equating to $700,000 a year, you have to ask yourself: at what price a marriage?)

Charles Rice Jr. won sixteen million dollars in a lottery, but quickly had the new Corvette sports car he bought with winnings impounded after he allegedly used it to assault two police officers. The injured police officers each sued him for a million dollars. Pat McKenna, a New York construction worker, won seven million dollars, but he cannot enjoy it; immediately afterward, he was arrested and jailed for drunk driving.

These kinds of stories about the curse of the lottery jackpot are not at all uncommon. Why would so many lottery winners experience so much tragedy, suffering, and chaos in their lives?

One explanation may be what I call the self-image snap back effect. Think of the self-image as a thick rubber band. You can stretch it quite a bit beyond its oval shape and you can forcibly hold it out there, but the second you cease your active stretching, the rubber band snaps right back to its original form, sometimes weaker than it was before. The person who gets sudden, unearned wealth dumped in his/her lap and doesn’t have the self-image prepared for it seems very likely to shift into self-sabotage almost overnight. Similarly, the sales pro who enjoys rapid, substantial income increases is stretching the rubber band, but at some point, can’t stretch anymore and it snaps back. You simply cannot sustain any success that is outside the acceptance range of your self-image. And if you do achieve such success, the self-image rears up and says “Wait just a minute there, buster. What makes you think you deserve ‘x’? Why, nobody in your whole family ever got anywhere close to ‘x’! You certainly don’t have enough education/experience/talent/know-how/good looks/whatever for ‘x’. Get back where you belong.” Snap.

Keep in mind that the self-image must be conditioned, strengthened and prepared for the success you seek.

Back to Elliott’s story. Yes, he returned for a visit after two months. I frankly wouldn’t say that the transformation was remarkable, but it was a beginning. Elliott was discovering new answers.

“Dr. Maltz,” he said, “the bank account gimmick is interesting. I’ve sent that money in every Friday just like you said. It’s a funny thing, but I haven’t missed it much. I’m still in about the same place with my bills. I haven’t had to eat beans or anything like that. But I’ve got over $700 in that darned bank account. What’s more interesting is that I’ve started to look forward to mailing in those deposits, and I feel good after I do it. I feel like I’m accomplishing something. I’m reading The Wall Street Journal and those other magazines, and for the first time in my life, getting interested in making money work for me. But the strangest thing is, my income’s going up. I’m closing more sales, but I don’t think I’m doing anything differently. Why do you think that is?”

“You may not be doing anything differently,” I said, “but you are beginning to think differently.”

My Prescriptions for Your Financial Health
and Well-Being

1. Scale down your expenses so you are living within your income, with money left over. Nothing other than this is acceptable.

2. Set up a plan and timetable to get out of debt. Commit to the goal of debt-free living.

3. Set and achieve financial and material goals of your own making, don’t play “keep up with the Joneses.”

4. Start saving, investing if possible. At the very least, open a “wealth-building account” and put a set percentage of every dollar that comes to you into that account, without fail.

5. Begin building the healthy self-image of a person who not only earns an exceptional income but is also a good steward of the good fortune that comes his or her way.